That’s what good friends are for… and it sounds like she can have a good laugh about it now. This past Friday, Megan Moroney released her third studio album Cloud 9, which includes a song called “Who Hurt You?” that fans are convinced is about Riley Green.
There’s been speculation about that one for months, and Moroney says writing it was a cathartic moment, that finds her being incredible honest about this elusive situation. She explained that she tried to include “every possible detail” so she never has to talk about it again:
“I remember coming up with that song and trying to include every possible detail that rhymes, so that I could put it out into the world and never have to talk about that situation again.
Songwriting is always therapeutic for me—but with ‘Who Hurt You?’ in particular I released so many emotions, and it feels really great not to have that all pent-up inside me anymore.”
That she did… it’s pretty ruthless, opening with a line that seemingly gets straight to the point about who it’s about, and while I’m sure she’ll never say for sure, it’s one of those “read between the lines” moments, I think… Really, where she sings “the devil went down to Georgia, then he crossed the Bama line” says a LOT about who the subject of this song might be.
She goes onto reference “hometown happy hours” and “hand-delivered flowers,” explaining that she “tried to run” while it was still a fun fling, alleging it was the man who “cosplayed someone with feelings” and convinced her to stay:
The last verse is really the most scathing, where she calls this person out for dating 21-year-olds and constantly needing his ego fed… she admits that even though she fell for it, she knows she’ll eventually move on, and he won’t. He’ll “stay the same forever”:
“You said you needed less flashy, more fun
Oh, of course she’s 21
On your arm through the bar
God, I hate how gross you are
And how did I not see it?
Your ego, it needs feeding
Endlessly, relentlessly
At the cost of me
And I’ll move on and
I’ll find better But you’ll stay the same forever”
Ultimately, she boils it down to the fact that this guy has a lot of unresolved issues from someone who hurt him before, and honestly, scathing doesn’t feel like nearly a harsh enough word to describe this song.
Riley seemingly had something to say about it too, putting out his own song called “POS Like Me” late Friday night which tells his side of this supposed breakup story:
And even though all of this happened last year, it sounds like Meg talking to her friend and mentor Kenny Chesney on his SiriusXM No Shoes Radio channel during a special feature, where she admitted that she needed to lay the situation out in song as a form of therapy:
“Songwriting has always been therapeutic for me. So, it’s like when I go through something, it’s almost like I’ve got to bottle up these feelings. Especially with, like, I’ll use ‘Who Hurt You?’ as an example.
Like, I was so hurt and angry by the situation that, like, I didn’t want to keep it in my soul anymore. I needed to create it into art and then give it away. You know what I mean? So, now that all of that pain wasn’t for nothing. You know what I mean?”
Kenny recalled that Megan had sent him a photo when all of that happened, where she was crying and upset over the situation, and he joked that it would be their “picture of the day” when this interview came out:
“I have the picture you sent me of it… of when all that happened. You sent me a picture. This should be the picture of the day on No Shoes Radio when this comes out.”
Megan said she had been crying so hard her “eyes were swollen shut”:
“Oh, of me crying. My face, my eyes. My eyes were swollen shut. You can use it if you want.”
Kenny replied:
“Swollen shut. If you look over there, Megan gave me a scrapbook after ‘The Sun Goes Down’ tour. And when I got that picture, I’m going to go, ‘You know what? I’m going to start my own scrapbook.”
Megan admitted that it was a rough time for her:
“I literally, right after this whole thing had happened, my eyes were swollen shut from crying.”
Being the songwriter he is, Kenny concluded that it wasn’t all for not since Megan did get a now very popular song out of it:
“Well, you got a great song out of it.”
Megan admitted that she is very emotional, and she felt like she had to write a song about all of it:
“Yeah, ‘Emo Cowgirl’ I don’t know. I like obviously, I feel like I feel things very deeply, and I can get over things once I write about it and turn it into something.”
They laughed as Megan assured him that she’s “over it,” though she also joked that her jaw was clenched as she thought back to it all:
“My jaw is clenched right now as we talk about it. I’m over it, Kenny, I’m over it.”
Kenny pointed out that her face was red too, and Megan said she was still “angry” about it, and wanted to scream the bridge:
“I’m just angry. I just want to scream the bridge, ‘You said you needed.'”
I think there will be thousands of emo cowgirls on her upcoming Cloud 9 tour that will be screaming every word along with her, and while I’m sure she’ll always feel a certain type of way about the whole thing, as both sides will, Kenny and Megan did laugh about it now so I think that’s a step in the right direction.
“Who Hurt You?”
Here’s the full clip:
